British Chinese artist Hai Shuet Yeung MBE is showcased in the British Museum’s premier Chinese gallery as a result of a recent refurbishment that brought contemporary and modern art into what used to be a largely historical display. Yeung, also known as Yáng Xīxuě (a literal pinyin transliteration of the three characters 杨希雪), received further recognition of his innovative abstract painting style in a publication accompanying the gallery refit, China: A History in Objects, by museum curator Jessica Harrison-Hall, recently published by Thames & Hudson in conjunction with The British Museum. In 1997, the museum bought two of Yeung’s abstract works — distinctly unsketched free flowing abstractions on rice paper. In a style that Yeung has taken into new directions since those museum acquisitions two decades ago, the paintings demonstrate his deft deployment of inks and colours without any resort to direct brushwork on the main body of the paintings. Instead, in these and numerous other works on paper using inks and other media, Yeung demonstrates that he can use ‘crumpled paper’ often in lieu of brushwork or in the style of textile tie-dyeing, or sometimes bring in playful bursts of a spraycan, with astounding results. In more recent painterly explorations, Hai Shuet Yeung has gone into oils, mostly on paper, but points out that comparisons with Jackson Pollock (1912 – 1956) are hasty, as his vibrant works benefit from his confident facility with painstaking technique and media, his singularly vibrant palette, his macro-micro argument and poetical narratives and that they invite scrutiny for deeper truths that go beyond abstract expressionism. These new works, however, may not yet find their way into the British Museum anytime soon for a variety of reasons, not least perhaps because they are oils on paper, not water colours. The purchase of the art works two decades to this year coincided with the publication of Hai Shuet Yeung: Innovation in Abstraction, by Sajid Rizvi with contributions by Anne Farrer and Lee Gongming in hardcover and softcover editions. More information on this book appears here. Interviewed for the volume, Hai Shuet Yeung outlined his ideas behind his bold and calculated departures from traditional Chinese painting methods, the use of what he called his ‘crumpled paper’ technique, and the interaction between the ‘macro’ and ‘micro’ views of the abstract in landscape art. He has said abstraction is...

The 2017 Turner Prize has gone to Lubaina Himid, at 63 reportedly the oldest artist to win the honour and the GBP 25,000 that comes with it. Himid’s resiliently uncompromising and witty approach to some of her artistic concerns, not least of those being the resurgence of aggressive nationalism in Europe and beyond, have widened her following over the years. The award of the prize comes in a week when United States government policies, in a telling contrast, threaten to deliver yet another blow to art and humanities as US museums face losing tens of millions of visitors from their international audiences affected by travel bans. The jury’s choice of Lubaina Himid was announced at a ceremony in Hull Minster, in partnership with Tate and Hull UK City of Culture 2017. This year the Turner Prize is being held at the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull as a highlight of its City of Culture year, itself at risk of falling victim to Brexit. The GBP 25,000 prize was presented by DJ, producer and artist Goldie during a live broadcast on the BBC. A further GBP 5,000 is awarded to each of the other shortlisted artists. The jury awarded the prize to Lubaina Himid for a trio of outstanding shows in Oxford, Bristol and Nottingham. They praised the artist for her uncompromising tackling of issues including colonial history and racism. The jury admired her expansive and exuberant approach to painting which combines satire and a sense of theatre. The prize acknowledges Lubaina Himid’s role as an influential curator and educator who continues to speak urgently to the moment. The shortlisted artists included Hurvin Anderson, Andrea Büttner and Rosalind Nashashibi. Lubaina Himid was born in 1954 in Zanzibar, Tanzania. She studied theatre design at Wimbledon College of Art and an MA in cultural history at the Royal College of Art. She is professor of contemporary art at the University of Central...

British Chinese artist Hai Shuet Yeung MBE is showcased in the British Museum’s premier Chinese gallery as a result of a recent refurbishment that brought contemporary and modern art into what used to be a largely historical display. Yeung, also known as Yáng Xīxuě (a literal pinyin transliteration of the three characters 杨希雪), received further recognition of his innovative abstract painting style in a publication accompanying...

The 2017 Turner Prize has gone to Lubaina Himid, at 63 reportedly the oldest artist to win the honour and the GBP 25,000 that comes with it. Himid’s resiliently uncompromising and witty approach to some of her artistic concerns, not least of those being the resurgence of aggressive nationalism in Europe and beyond, have widened her following over the years. The award of the prize comes in a week when United States government...

Syria’s grim humanitarian crisis finds yet another sombre expression in The Lost Men of Syria exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery, opening 19 July. Photographer Edward Jonkler’s work examines the role of men in refugee camps, and the shifting power dynamics that can often lead to acts of radicalisation and mental illness, with once patriarchal figures becoming “lost’. Fleeing violence and the destruction of their lives...

Come this June (2017), Tate Modern celebrates the life and works of Fahrelnissa Zeid, an artist who can rightly be seen as one of the female pioneers, in the wider Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, of both modernism and abstraction in a western sense, responsive to western aesthetics and sensibilities. Abstraction, through reinterpretation of Arabic/Farsi/Osmanli/Urdu calligraphic forms, isn’t new to a region that, in...

London’s annual Nour Festival returns to the multicultural metropolis 20 October-6 November 2016, promising to highlight “the best of contemporary arts and culture from the Middle East and North Africa.” Sadly the festival’s overarching mission is challenged and overshadowed by unprecedented turmoil and fragmentation in the region it celebrates and showcases. As the five-year-old festival’s audiences...

The winners of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture were announced 3 October 2016 in a ceremony in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The venue for the winners’ ceremony, the Al Jahili fort in Al-Ain, was also announced by Awaidha Murshed Al Marar, Chairman of Department of Municipal Affairs and Transport and a member of the Executive Council of Abu Dhabi. The winners are: BANGLADESH: 1 Bait Ur Rouf Mosque, Dhaka (Architect: Marina...